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| Fourteen-cent savings add up on prison meals |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 08/24/2003 |
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By saving pennies on the cost of each meal for inmates, New York prison administrators say they will save taxpayers millions of dollars. Starting this month, all meals consumed by prisoners are being made at a food processing center at the medium-security Oneida Correctional Facility near Utica. Officials at the NY State Department of Correctional Services said three meals and beverages can be provided to 66,000 inmates from the one center for $2.10 per prisoner per day. Meals made at individual prisons cost $2.24 per prisoner per day to produce, officials calculated. Multiplying the 14-cent-a-day difference by the 198,000 inmate meals served each day in the prison system, administrators said the consolidation of food services will save New Yorkers more than $3 million a year against the cost of making meals in individual prisons. The Oneida food center is undergoing a $19 million expansion to accommodate the enlarged processing capacity. Food at the center is cooked to an almost-done stage, then quick-chilled and sealed in plastic bags. It is then trucked to the 70 prisons in the state system where it is heated up and served. The Department of Correctional Services did not have a figure readily available Tuesday for increased trucking costs of the new food distribution system. Among the oversized equipment used at the Oneida facility are five tanks with the individual capacity to cook one ton of food at one time and eight kettles with a capacity of 2,800 gallons. The inmate labor force at the processing center has been expanded by 24, to 110, to handle the new output. Prison officials say the enlarged capacity may allow the Oneida center to produce surplus meals that can be sold to counties to feed their jail populations. For five years, the state has supplied meals to inmates at the Oneida County Jail. Prison officials said some counties pay as much as $4 a day to feed prisoners. New York is not alone in seeking to make economies in prison food budget. Virginia has cut back from three meals to two meals a day for inmates on weekends and Texas has reduced from 2,700 to 2,500 the calorie content of inmates' daily meals. Iowa has cut back on desserts at some of its facilities. |
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